


Persona Non Grata

by levitatethis



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, M/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-18
Updated: 2010-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 13:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mohinder is stuck in what feels like a no-win situation. When an opportunity presents itself to take back his life, he grabs it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Persona Non Grata

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to the direction the show took...something I didn't particularly care for. Although this is Mohinder/Sylar centric, almost all the characters get a mention.

_“How I wish I could surrender my soul;   
Shed the clothes that become my skin;   
See the liar that burns within my needing.   
How I wish I'd chosen darkness from cold.   
How I wish I had screamed out loud,   
Instead I've found no meaning. _

_I guess it's time I run far, far away; find comfort in pain,   
All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble.   
Hides my true shape, like Dorian Gray.   
I've heard what they say, but I'm not here for trouble.   
It's more than words: it's just tears and rain."_   
**-James Blunt, _Tears and Rain_   
**

Mohinder sits at the kitchen table with his hands grasped together and resting on the wooden surface.

He waits.

Once in awhile he drifts his eyes over to the clock that sits on the far desk by the window. Whether time passes slowly or rapidly no longer matters, if it ever really did. He is imprisoned within its bindings and ignored by it all the same. Taking a deep breath he closes his eyes and thinks.

He remembers.

He remembers when purpose dictated his actions, be they risky or compassionate, and lit the fuse that clipped his steps. He recalls the thrill that came from the rush of adrenalin when he was frightened for his life (or another's) or excited over a new discovery that gave all the seemingly endless night's immediate meaning.

Opening his eyes, Mohinder looks down at his hands. Unlocking his fingers he turns them over slowly, staring at them, and wonders.

_These hands, my eyes, once bore the mark of the witness. I existed because I needed to, because they needed me. I'm not done yet. I can't be.   
_  
He listens to the empty apartment, the near soundproof realm only infiltrated by the faint hum of electricity, the thrum of the radiator and the hustle of the city outside tapping its finger on his window teasing him about a world he is no longer part of.

_At least my father got an ending.   
_  
He hates feeling sorry for himself, but with nothing else to do he is shackled to the despair that weighs down his shoulders and knots the muscles in his back.

For all he had and all he still could be, all he can do now is wait.

Time ticks away.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** **********   
**

What Mohinder wouldn't give to see Peter again, just to speak with him one more time. He misses him immensely and can't help but reminisce about the conversations they had, the ones they should have had, the very ones they should _still_ be sharing, if not for short-sightedness and the utter disregard of others.

A friendship that should have been hangs by a precarious thread on the edge of nothingness.

With boredom rattling his will, Mohinder strolls around his apartment. He randomly picks up things (books he flips over in his hand to read the back, the television remote he considers using one moment then regards apathetically a second later, the jackets that still line the small section of wall by the front door) then fits them back into place.

He unpacks and reorganizes the dishes in the kitchen and rearranges the groceries. Sometimes he goes over his research again (not that it means much with all the samples and annotations now out of date) and it brings a small smile to his face as old feelings and memories haunt once more. Although it is more a test of going through the motions, it suffices when he wants to feel useful, and the list lights up his eyes as it flashes across his laptop's screen.

While cleaning his bedroom he slips on an old white button down shirt with a purple paisley pattern that he hasn't worn for awhile (at some point having given way to simple, classic neutral colours) over his green t-shirt. The old cloth skin clings to him perfectly and he fingers a striped scarf hung away in the back of the closet for old time sake.

Nothing changes the fact that he is alone.

Exiled. And for what?

He can picture Peter's smiling face in his mind's eye and wishes he could will him to visit. To himself he admits that his reasons aren't totally altruistic. As much as he would love Peter's company, a visit from him--possibly getting out of this damn apartment--would mean that Mohinder is still vital, still needed; still here.

That he can still hope for that in some small way means something.

Or at least it should.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** **********   
**

He is so surprised by the unexpected sound of the front door (finally) opening that he only has time to stand up from the living room sofa and stare, anxious and dumbfounded, with his dog-eared copy of A Passage to India still in hand.

Sylar's dark eyes immediately clasp his.

“Hello, Mohinder,” he says closing the door behind him and taking a few diffident yet commanding steps into the apartment. “I'm not interrupting you am I?”

Mohinder tries to control his breathing that has been shocked into quick and shallow gasps. He drops the book to the sofa; never moving his eyes away from Sylar's and turns fully towards him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Mohinder trails the question with a gasp of disbelief. “You're dead. I _saw_ you dead.”'

Sylar halts his procession and wrinkles his brow inquisitively. He opens his mouth as if to ask something but then shuts it and appears pensive for a moment. “That was another lifetime ago. As you can see,” he raises his arms to emphasize his bodily presence and (strange even for him) black suit with a white dress shirt and loosely knotted black tie, “I'm in much better health.”

Twisting his lips into a condescending smile, Sylar moves forward again towards Mohinder, lowering his arms but not before pointing his right index finger at him. “You, on the other hand, are looking a little…what's the word?”

_Agitated? Dismayed? Astonished?_ Mohinder thinks as he folds his arms defensively--instinctively in the face of what appears to be yet more evidence of his twisted nightmare--across his chest and maintains an unwavering stance.

“Perturbed,” Sylar finishes with a dramatic eyebrow raise. “Aren't you happy to see me?”

When Mohinder does not reply (unable to as his brain refuses to function in any way considered normal) Sylar mimics an exaggerated pout.   
“You must have been wondering when I'd finally show up here,” Sylar queries and though amusement keeps his tone light there is an underlying hint of curiosity aimed at Mohinder.

Dread--a state that Mohinder had long ago let go of for what he could not understand or control--bubbles up once more. He wonders how long he has actually been in this apartment, effectively held hostage. Sylar standing confidently before him, watching him as if expecting a quick retort to fly off his tongue, is not helping matters. It means that everything Mohinder thought he knew or had at least resigned himself to accept has been undone, and drastically so. Immediately he speculates why no one has come to tell him that Sylar is alive, has bothered to even consider him worthy of that knowledge, unless this moment is that pronouncement. But something isn't right.

Mohinder wills himself to inhabit the part he has played so well before when survival necessitated it. He rolls his eyes and says, “Yes. I spend all my free time wondering when you'll drop in for a drink.”

Sylar tilts his head to the side and pushes his hands in his pant pockets. “Don't be rude. Is that any way to treat a guest?”

“Guest?” Mohinder laughs. “That would imply I invited you in.”

Sylar steps closer, still holding the gaze between them. “And with you just standing there--agape--I _infer_ that you're not quite as disappointed to see me as you should be. Although maybe a bit unnerved.”

Mohinder angles his head back and tightens his arms constrictively across his chest. There are so many questions he wants to ask Sylar, not the least of which is how Sylar is still alive and for how long that fact it has been known. They had all stood around the funeral pyre watching his body burn. It was _supposed_ to be the end, even if it had not felt like a fitting one, not for the likes of Sylar so anonymously rendered into the forgettable hereafter and certainly not for Mohinder whose life had become so entwined with his.

Playing these (effectively, schoolyard) games is only serving as an obstacle to any enlightening end. But it is also familiar territory and strangely freeing from the monotonous and tedious existence his life has become. For once, falling into an old routine feels spectacular.

“Have you come here to pick apart my brain?”

Sylar eyes him for a few seconds. “In a manner of speaking.”

Mohinder watches Sylar's eyes finally flit away and begin taking in the details of the apartment. He sees deep lines work their way into Sylar's forehead as he begins to put the disjointed pieces together. Sylar turns on the spot, taking a few steps towards the bedroom before stopping and then redirecting his movements towards the bathroom and then the kitchen. He glances at Mohinder who has followed at a safe distance behind, mostly observing from the kitchen.

Mohinder can take a guess at what it is that must be going through Sylar's mind. The apartment looks almost exactly the same with only the most inconsequential of alterations, such as a few new books, a blanket for the bed and cable television. Other than that absolutely nothing truly noticeable has been changed, it can't be; not without permission from higher up that is rarely (if ever) granted. Mohinder is stuck in a damn hamster's wheel with the same cartoon scenery spinning by in the background, giving the illusion of movement when it's all just a farce.

Sylar's judgmental smile raises the hairs on the back of Mohinder's neck. “I love what you've done with the place.”

“Not like I had much choice in the matter,” Mohinder mutters but Sylar hears the remark and casts a troubled stare his way that only heightens Mohinder's defensive curiosity.

In the grand scheme of things beggars can't be choosers. Mohinder is desperate for information from the outside world and this is his first real chance to get it. That it should arrive in the form of Sylar is a twisted fate, and as tempted as Mohinder is to cast combativeness aside, he also can't bring himself to admit he needs Sylar right now as the bridge between life and purgatory. It is monstrously unfair and Mohinder ruminates on a world that would demand this price. He needs to gather information--_Where is Peter or Nathan? Why hasn't Matt tried to contact me? What sordid misadventure is Bennet up to now_?--without appearing to give in.

“So let's hear it.” Mohinder clears his throat and speaks loud and clear, playing the card of indifference. He begins a deliberately casual stroll around Sylar to the kitchen table, and sits on the edge. “Surely you're here to dazzle me with stories of wild adventures meant to awe and frighten.”

Sylar looks at Mohinder over his left shoulder then twists the rest of his body around. “Are you granting me the floor for my side of the story? You want to compare it to Peter's?”

Mohinder's mind whirls with the possibilities of what that means but he is careful to shrug his shoulders under the pretence of being unaffected by Sylar's presence.

“Or maybe you've already made up your mind,” Sylar continues. “Did you allow Peter to defend himself or is he still someone you give an automatic pass to?

“Don't make this about Peter just because you know what you've done is…unforgivable,” Mohinder warns, guessing at what Sylar has been involved in to bring him here in such an overconfident display. He tightly grips the edge of the table on either side of his legs. “Consider this a momentary concession. I'm giving you something you've always sought.”

Sylar cocks his head to the side, conveying the unspoken,_ 'enlighten me.' _

“My rapt attention,” Mohinder finishes.

“You think I _need _your approval?”

“I think you _want_ my understanding.”

Sylar peers at him coldly then scoffs and walks over to the desk by the window. He fingers the papers that are scattered across the top and turns his attention back to Mohinder. His quick glance to the door, however, has Mohinder unexpectedly worried that Sylar may leave instead, thus throwing him back to square one with no chance to break unrelenting the Sisyphus curse.

Mohinder rises to his feet in an unplanned mode of counterattack.

“A cluttered desk is a cluttered mind,” Sylar muses out of the blue, effectively stopping any instinctive display of desperation on Mohinder's part. “It's clouding your judgment. Peter doesn't deserve your unfettered affection.”

“He doesn't deserve your derision,” Mohinder retorts.

“How can you still defend him while holding me accountable for actions that have proven not that different?” Sylar questions bitterness. “Hypocritical aren't we.”

_What has Peter done? It can't be--no--he wouldn't. What happened?_

“Are you seriously trying to compare yourself with him?” Mohinder is incredulous, recalling the friend he had met, once so bashful at what he believed himself capable of, in the hopes of doing some good. “At least his intentions are honourable.”

“There's little place for honour in revenge.” Sylar stalks towards him. “Especially not when his feelings have once again short-circuited.”

“I'm sure he--,”

“Meant well?” Belligerent ridicule drips from Sylar's tongue. “I'll allow that his obsession with revenge against them was only second to mine, but what he's done?”

Sylar thrusts his weight heavily forward on one leg and snaps, “When did you last leave this apartment?!”

Sylar's irritated question is meant to be rhetorical. His anger is not in doubt, but it certainly doesn't blind him to the slight flinch Mohinder gives like an uncontrollable nervous tick, or the speeding of Mohinder's heart, the blanching of his face, and the nervous drop of his eyes to the floor then back up.

Sylar's breathing, hard and heavy, slows considerably and his closing eyes under a pinched brow slightly soften. Anger is replaced by confusion as he unclenches his jaw and shifts his focus about the apartment, much more observantly this time around. “Can't you leave?”

Mohinder swallows his worry loudly.

A patronizing smile twitches up the right corner of Sylar's lips and he takes another purposeful, looming step forward. “How fascinating. I wonder how that works.”

“Don't bother. You'll never have it,” Mohinder informs him with aggravation at the caustic predicament and a faint thrill at being able to tell Sylar no and mean it.

“Are you underestimating me?” Sylar snickers.

Exasperation flares and Mohinder steps into Sylar's space. “No, you're underestimating _them_.”

Sylar wrinkles his brow. “Who?”

Mohinder hesitates answering, unsure how much he wants to reveal even though deep down inside he knows he is right. Under Sylar's scrutinizing gaze he changes tactics in an attempt to get back on solid ground before he gives away too much of his hand.

With a premeditated step back he asks, “What made you come here?”

Sylar, with a half-parted mouth that reveal the tips of his bottom teeth, shakes his head. “What does that have to do with--,”

“Sylar.”

Sylar, surprised at Mohinder's harsh tone, snaps his mouth shut and mulls over what to say. “I said I was coming.” It is matter of fact.

Thoughtfully Mohinder reconsiders his next question. “You said out loud that you were coming here specifically?”

“…yes.”

“What were your exact words?” Mohinder insistently prompts. “Do you remember?”

“I have eidetic memory,” is Sylar's annoyed reply. “I said I was going to drop in on an old friend.”

Mohinder can imagine the sinister tone with which Sylar would have delivered that announcement, but that is neither here nor there. Not right now.

“And you came here?”

“Well it was generally implied. Who else would I mean?”

Mohinder sighs as the missing pieces unfortunately click together an answer he doesn't want. “Do you remember the last time we came face-to-face?”

“Pinehurst.” Sylar is perturbed at the cryptic line of questioning that Mohinder is putting him through. “You were about to go all Dr. Frankenstein on dear old, _Pete_\--which…”

“What?”

Sylar lays into him with piercing eyes. “Surprised me. It's the last thing I would have expected from you.”

As if finally realizing the oddness of their conversation and what it supposes, Sylar seems to shrug loose the attitude he normally wears like a well-fitted jacket. He runs his left hand through his hair, resting the palm briefly against his neck. “I tried to stop you--,”

“Out of the goodness of your heart?” Mohinder snaps.

Sylar speaks over him, all contradictory. “_You_ attacked _me_.”

“And then we worked in the same place but never spoke of each other or questioned why the other was there in the first place. We didn't even try to confront each other again.” Mohinder works his words like a chessboard move, taking a chance and guiding the play all at once.

For the first time since arriving, concern shows up in the strong lines etched into Sylar's face. “If there's a point you' re trying to make you may want to get to it about now.”

“Why would you referring to an old friend mean me?” Mohinder wants Sylar to figure this out the way he had, all on his own.

“Because it always has,” Sylar attests almost innocently. He pauses the second the words are out of his mouth and quietly, distractedly, adds, “It used to.”

“But not for quite some time.” Mohinder looks to the floor and runs his hands through his hair, taking a deep breath then glances fleetingly at Sylar. “You weren't coming here,” he says with resignation.

“But I _am_ here.”

“For now. But it's not _real_.” Mohinder puts air quotes around the last word.

“Even Bennet isn't half as cryptic as you,” Sylar utters off the cuff, but fixed in Mohinder's sights his stance turns worried, reverent and tentatively sympathetic. “Why are _you_ here, Mohinder?”

Mohinder pulls out one of the kitchen chairs. “Because they are more powerful than you--than any of us.” He sits down, resting his left hand, palm down on the table, while rubbing the fingers of his right hand against the grain, and looks up. “The last thing I did was say goodbye to Peter at Coyote Sands after…”

He trails off so that Sylar can fill in the blanks about the burning of what was (now known to be a lie) his body and reaches up his right hand across his chest to scratch his left shoulder. “I've been here ever since. Stuck. Waiting. If I'm lucky I've been mentioned in some offhand comment, but even that doesn't change a thing, not while I'm _out of sight_.”

He considers Sylar for a moment, indifferently wagging his right index finger in the air then resting his hands on his thighs. “You're here because it makes sense based on who we were--back then when it made sense--but even you can't be so blind as to what they've done.”

“Who?” Sylar lifts and slams down the chair to Mohinder's right.

“The writers!”

Sylar's face falls and he steps back, dropping his grip from the top of the chair's back, as the air escapes his body. Mohinder watches him move back another step all the while not breaking from Mohinder's within unflinching stare. Panic sets in when Sylar turns tail and heads towards the door.

Mohinder feels powerless and at his wits end. He wants to break something and yell a readied insult or plea (whichever slips past his tongue first) to prolong his first face-to-face with anyone, in who knows how long, but he is quieted when Sylar stops of his own accord and presses his palms to the door before leaning forward and touching his forehead against it.

After a few seconds of silence Sylar turns around and approaches the table. He pulls out the seat to Mohinder's right and sits down, pulling the chair close to the side of the table so that he can lean towards Mohinder (while resting his right elbow on the table's surface), turning them into the very sight of conspirators discussing something not meant for eavesdropping ears.

“What about the writers?”

Mohinder is flummoxed as to whether Sylar is truly daft or feeling out Mohinder's thoughts before committing any opinions of his own out loud. As is the case, Mohinder has lost all recourse for politeness. He is ready to offload and share his plight with anyone who will listen, whom could help.

Mohinder scoots his chair closer and leans into Sylar's space, resting his elbows on his knees. “They've left me here,” he says in a hushed and commanding voice. “I have absolutely no idea what's going on outside with anybody else, with the world. It's like I'm in a no man's land with no way of getting out unless _they_ decide it.”

Lost in thought, Sylar absentmindedly flits his eyes to the side and says out loud to himself, “Which is why you thought that maybe I…”

Mohinder nods, emitting a frustrated huff as he sits back. “Just until the next script is written and it turns out you've actually gone off to visit someone else who they've decided is really important to you…to the show.”

Sylar stares at him and guardedly states, “That could still be you.”

Mohinder rolls his eyes and hunches forward again, thrusting his face confrontationally at Sylar. “Do you seriously believe that to be true? Even after everything that was done to all of us? After everything that was upended in volume three?”

Sylar looks down at the hand he has resting on the table. Consideration works its way into the tight lines that accentuate his tensed jaw and the scattered thoughts obviously pushing his mind into overdrive. Suddenly he lifts his dark eyes to Mohinder's.

“They made you inject yourself,” Sylar rumbles lowly.

Relief at the first hint of being believed and understood brings a rush of peace to Mohinder. The moment he has long waited for, to finally be heard about this terrible mess, is finally unfolding.

“There was no proper build up as to why I might shoot myself up with some untested serum.” Mohinder shakes his head. “It's scientifically unsound. Yet it would have been easy to do had there been any thought put into it. A mention here and there about my curiosity regarding what it may be like to be one of you. And of course--,”

“The fact that I had just held you and Molly hostage.”

“Not to mention shooting Maya in front of us. My motivation could have been any number of things including wanting to protect Molly from another attack.” Mohinder pulls back and dejection is echoed in a defeatist posture. “I don't even know where I sent her. She's just…gone. Matt and I didn't even mention her the last time we saw each other. How is that possible? We were allegedly raising her together, which was a whole other storyline never thought out properly or carried through. At least let me say I sent her to India to stay with my mother. I'd hate to think what the writers would have me do as the alternative.”

“At least they won't make you a Petrelli for all of two seconds,” Sylar muses distastefully. “Twice.”

“Although if they did I might actually get out of this limbo.” Mohinder manages a small smile, nonplussed as to what Sylar means by implying a second time.

“But it would be at the expense of who you _truly _are, the story they already set in stone from volume one. Mine is the one that got edited and redesigned into something unrecognizable for some purpose I have yet to figure out.”

Mohinder plays devil's advocate, as much out of manipulation as it is in wonderment. “The Petrellis _are_ powerful and you believed yourself to be destined for more.”

“On my own terms!” Sylar argues, sitting upright. “Not because some family puts a claim on me from out of the blue. It wasn't their right to control me through lies and mind control.”

“Wha--mind control?” A chill runs through Mohinder at the implication of Matt.

Sylar stares at him, reining in his anger. “What? You don't recognize the threads?” He raises his arms. “Lady Macbeth and her minions, Bennet and Parkman, decided to wipe me clean and slip me into Nathan's place as the man who would be king.”

“Nathan?”

“Dead.”

Mohinder shuts his eyes as a wave of nausea churns his stomach. “Why would anyone do that?”

“Because instead of understanding the power of simplicity, the timelessness of a classic story, everything has become about convoluted angles that only end up undermining what was once intriguing,” Sylar details with a scowl. “I was decisive, unparalleled. Natural selection at it's finest. I didn't owe anyone else this calling. It was my evolutionary imperative, my _inevitability_.”

“You mean it wasn't because Elle brought you a peach pie and broke your heart?” Mohinder mocks the ridiculousness of yet another improbable re-imagining presented as fact that undermined what once was.

Sylar shoots him a surprised look. “How do you know about that?”

“There's a box I found in the back of the closet that's full of old scripts.” Mohinder flippantly waves to the bedroom.

Sylar looks over his shoulder in that direction and Mohinder takes the opportunity to study him carefully. Although this is the last conversation he ever expected to have with Sylar it also feels long overdue for him to speak with anyone about the increasingly debilitating nightmare plaguing him. Mohinder remembers the long stretches of road that were empty save for their conversations on almost any and everything; and sadly cherishes it as one of the first few times in America that made Mohinder feel he could call this country home. As much as Mohinder hates the news that Sylar has brought he finds he is more appreciative of at least being in the know instead of focusing on _what_ the information is.

When Sylar finally does turn back he appears pensive. He digs the fingers of his right hand against the table's edge. With his head hanging forward, his heavy eyebrows darken his face considerably and give his eyes an ominous glint.

“When have I ever been led by something as base as sex?” Sylar asks tersely. “I've wielded the suggestion of it like a weapon and seen it as a means to an end. I learned that from Candace and made an example out of Maya. But wanting to gratify some human lust? It wasn't me with Elle. I don't even think it was her. Bonnie and Clyde, we were not. _That_ would have worked--the sociopath and the psychopath, emotionless and disconnected, but finding enjoyment in the pain of others? Imagine how that story would have played out? Instead I was reduced to a whiny doppelganger looking for love in the all the wrong places and she was the stereotypical casualty of falling for the mark, not to mention a remarkable example of terrible continuity--she was normal with me but then certifiable later on with Peter.”

Sylar's change in demeanor sends a shiver through Mohinder.

“Not exactly your forte,” Mohinder's understanding is clear regarding the differences that strike a contrast between Sylar and the others.

“As much mine as you apparently being indifferent to the plight of powered people, going so far as to support their detainment,” Sylar says wryly.

“That's precisely what I'm talking about!” Mohinder emphatically waves both hands in the air then lowers them to his lap and sits back in his chair, stretching his right leg out. “When would I ever express such an opinion? Me? Someone who would have seen firsthand the aggravation and pain caused by being judged and rebuked, possibly detained myself, for the way I look or where I' m from. Would it really be so believable that I would tow the line of some sort of prejudicial profiling when I know full well it would destroy the lives of many innocent people?”

Finally being allowed to voice discontent spikes excitement through Mohinder. He wants to rile Sylar up and get him just as angry. He wants Sylar to be furious and insistent that someone be held accountable for what has happened. Mohinder knows too well he waited too long, that he should have made his voice boom discontent when he had the chance instead of letting false hope blind him. He has been imprisoned as much by his own mistakes as by the writers callous disregard. But now an opportunity has unveiled itself.

Realizing that Sylar is watching him he adds for extra measure, “You get it. Maybe you _are_ an empath.”

Sylar's eyes flare wide as the insult hits its desired mark. Mohinder calculatedly brings up the ludicrous and detrimental rewrite of Sylar's past that in no way added to his complexities, rather diminishing his once unique and unparalleled being, something Sylar has relied on and cherished as proof of the destiny he always believed for himself. In one swoop of a written word and a spoken line, Sylar has been remade into little more than another paper man cut out, languishing with all the rest; a dime a dozen.

“I'm _not_ an empath.” Sylar is commanding.

Mohinder treads carefully, simply raising a questioning eyebrow.

Unblinking fury courses behind blackened eyes and Sylar repeats more loudly, “I'm not an _empath_.”

“You think I don't know that?” Mohinder appeases and looks up to the ceiling as if indicating a higher power. “Despite their insistence to the contrary.”

“Intuitive aptitude.” Sylar stands up, kicking back his chair, resulting in a jarring scraping sound as it scrapes against the floor. Hunching over, he presses his right hand firmly against the table. “By the time Chandra figured it out it was too late, but it was _mine_.”

“They tried to take it away from you.” Mohinder stokes the fire calmly yet steadily. “Yet another way they made you like Peter, the same.”

Mohinder slowly stands up. He feels the seething heat jumping off of Sylar's body. “But you were different from the beginning. Your mind is what set you apart, unequalled in what you could do. You actively had to use your ability. It didn't just _happen_. It was fitting that you were Patient Zero. My father may not have known it from the start, but eventually…I knew.”

Mohinder laughs joylessly. “Empathy--you knew how to fix all those broken watches because you understood their feelings.”

Sylar inhales a sharp intake of breath, nostrils flared at the sarcastically shared ridicule.

_Feel the rage at what was done to you_, Mohinder thinks. _Become (my) retribution. Become (our) vengeance._

Sylar stands tall, holding the steady gaze, his shoulders are tense and he stretches his fingers; then curls them closed, stretches them and then curls them closed. “They tried to change you too, to make me forget you. Another road trip, but all the time Maya spoke I kept wondering when it was that _you_ figured me all out.”

“I'll never tell.” Mohinder fights back the smile that threatens to break loose.

“And all the time Elle was trying to attack me, yelling about betrayal and her dead father, wanting me to suffer, I knew that those words were yours. I knew they should have come from you, as your burden to carry; as your punishment to deliver.”

Mohinder skirts around Sylar and, passing shoulder-to-shoulder, whispers, “They took away _our_ fight.”

Sylar snatches his arm in a bruising grip. “It was Chandra who helped make me.”

“You made yourself. My father was an accessory after the fact. But it's nice to know you're still playing the blame game when it suits you to not claim all that you are for yourself.”

“We could do this right here.”

“Don't.” Mohinder is resolute.

“You think you deserve better?” Sylar needles him.

_Yes!_

He won't be dealt with off screen just to make it more convenient for _them_. Not after everything he gave and was subjected to at their careless whims.

Mohinder fixes his eyes on Sylar's, unwavering. “You certainly think you do. It would be an unbefitting death. You'd receive no credit for it but a throwaway line and I would simply disappear all together, already forgotten long before my demise was imminent.”

Sylar loosens his grip and Mohinder pulls free, moving around behind Sylar and encouraging him to turn around.

“I almost stopped you once,” Mohinder reminds him.

“You came the closest on your own, without powers or an entourage,” Sylar admits and smirks. “But I got you in the end.”

“Still didn't kill me,” Mohinder taunts, folding his arms across his chest and bending the upper half of his body in Sylar's direction.

“I didn't want to,” Sylar points out the difference. “But you know that.”

“That was then.” Mohinder cannot help but lament with irritation thick in his voice the change that has undone their relationship, once so intense and undeniable.

“This is now,” Sylar clarifies sternly, suggesting that as far as he is concerned that fact hasn't changed. “It doesn't just go away and disappear into nothing.”

“Until people forget to care.” Mohinder begins to walk away, wondering if this is too much to overcome while prodding Sylar back into the lead role. Sylar telekinetically stops him and spins him around.

“_We_ were at the beginning.” Sylar holds his right index finger up at his side. “Our story was part of the original fabric.”

“And how long have I been here?” Mohinder demands as he tries to struggle free from the invisible hold, unprepared for Sylar's gung-ho offensive. He is perplexed as to why it took this accidental visit for Sylar to even consider doing something consequential. Grimacing through his words he says, “Did anyone even notice I was gone? Sylar!”

At the sharp words Sylar releases the hold and Mohinder glares at him, stalking forward and shoving him in the chest.

“You show up here expecting some sort of response that I can't give you because I have no idea what it should be. I'm stuck in this place! Held against my will and better reason, all the while a life I should be part of goes on out there without any regard for the fact that I've simply disappeared.”

Sylar's step forward instinctively prompts Mohinder to take a cautious one step back.

“I came here because it's canon that we're bound,” Sylar states curtly. “I'm here because that's the rational extension of my character--tied back to _you_, to torture or seek help from. And when all that rewritten material falls away, when all that retconning stutters to stop, _we're_ still here. I--Gabriel, Zane, Sylar--_I_ am the one standing in front of you.”

“Only while you're here. Because beyond this door,” Mohinder points at it, “You don't exist. Not like this. Not the way you were.”

“I'll make them listen.” Sylar promises, his tone flat and deliberate.

“How?” Mohinder practically shouts, wanting to think it true. But he is too much of an old hat at how this game is played and he has no interest in living in denial over face value declarations. He needs substance. “You couldn't even stop them from annihilating who you were, the man who they once so carefully took the time to create using your help down to every telling nuance. These are the same people who had you hunt down Claire to kill, who you assaulted horrifically, only to hint at some weird seduction between you both. As if she would come to accept that and you would want it. Stockholm Syndrome in the future, when you're the only immortals around and resigned to any human contact, maybe. But right now? As you both are?”

Mohinder breathes deeply. He tilts his head back, posturing unflinching intent. He has been here too long to let the hint of hope go by without a reality check. If things are going to change, they need to go in with their eyes wide open.

“Did you do anything in volume three that came close to volume one, or even two? Volume four at least made a bit more sense but even that…” Mohinder refuses to break from Sylar's glare fighting him for the upper hand or an answer that seems less doom and gloom.

Feelings he has long held deep inside, forced to ferment, rush to the surface and his strong voice carries cracks and a miniscule faltering; his emotions refusing to wait their turn. “They turned me into a monster. They made me cold and indifferent, driven only by selfish pursuits. But I know I loved my father, even if he never showed me how he felt. His work, his belief in something fantastical beyond our understanding but undeniably the next stop in human evolution was my inspiration. To avenge a ghost I'll never reach, to step out from his shadow only to find that this was my path all along that he was walking to clear the way for me…”

Mohinder leans into Sylar, standing nearly chest-to-chest. “All these people with remarkable abilities, not sure how they work or fit in, a secret organization trying to contain and control them, a frightening and elusive all powerful figure looming on the periphery and moving in a counter-clockwise motion, answerable to only himself, and me at the center. You upended my life and now it's all been brushed under the carpet with no sign of poetic justice. This was _my_ story too!”

Sylar says nothing and Mohinder's broken rant echoes in the hollowness between them. The strained quiet shrouded over them also provides the deep breath Mohinder needs for perspective. For all of Sylar's selfishness or declarations of self-preservation, this is a case where he is not the culprit or mysterious figure pulling all their strings. Sylar is as much a casualty of this meandering shortsightedness and creative black hole has any of the others.

Mohinder drops his shoulders and looks too to the side, settling his gaze on the floor. “At least they still believe you serve some higher purpose,” he mutters.

“The reality is far less enviable than you imagine.” Sylar's quiet reply vibrates against the side of Mohinder's face and Mohinder pulls back slightly to look at him. Their faces are close and the breaching of personal space strikes a chord that thrums all that still could be, but won't.

“I've been ricocheted between characterizations so fast that I can't tell who I am from one episode to the next.” Sylar sighs and grasps Mohinder's left shoulder with his left hand, squeezing it in a manner that nostalgically recalls the cold Montana drive and the story that should have been, and would have if not for a lack of common sense and a preponderance of creative misdirection.

“Did you know I had a budding apprentice for awhile; Luke, who I think was supposed to be like me. I took him under my wing to…teach? Use? Sounds interesting in theory, doesn't it? 'What if Gabriel had had a guide who helped him discover who he was?'” Sylar poses the question thoughtfully.

“Apparently I needed a redemption arc so I was sympathetic with the kid, but then cold, uncharacteristically caring, then murderous. He wasn't exactly on the up-and-up either, but it certainly seemed like the writers were setting up something then figured they'd done enough. I would have concerned myself with it if there were a chance it would have made sense at some time. As it is, Luke _should_ pop up again at some point with a grudge to bear but he's just as likely standing at the side of the road for all eternity, never to be mentioned again.”

Sylar purses his lips like he is trying to slow down the rush of issues that he can finally voice out loud. “They gave me a memory I never had before. Said I remembered my father giving me away and murdering my real mother.” Sylar closes his eyes briefly to regroup. “_Virginia_ was my mother. My father was a watchmaker. I was born and raised in Queens. I _know_ this much is true. They tried to take away my culpability by saying every act of murder that I committed was out of my hands; that _'The Hunger'_ made me do it. My _will_ was turned upside down. I was domesticated and made safe. Suddenly there was no intent because there was no purpose.”

Swallowing hard, choking down the jagged pill, Sylar lets go of Mohinder's shoulder and tosses his head back, stretching his neck and staring up at the ceiling. When he lowers his gaze back to meet Mohinder's there is the undeniable embers of bottled rage; his hands clenched into tight fists. “But we both know the truth. I _wanted_ it, all of it. I saw what none of them deserved but had been given--to waste away, scared of being different, trying to be useless. Those abilities, in my hands, made me evolution personified. I _am_ the next leap forward.”

Mohinder begins to speak, but Sylar cuts him off. “I don' t care what they say, Mohinder. I repeat the words that belong to someone else, someone who pretends to know me but shows no understanding or concern for the very things that make me who I am. I say those words but don't believe them, and neither should you.”

Mohinder shakes his head and looks over the door. “Easier said than done,” he replies flatly. “Especially when they're altering every touchstone that guided me. Have you heard the news that my father worked in the U.S.--at Coyote Sands--doing tests on Specials long before any of us was even a flickering thought in our parents eyes?”

He senses Sylar walking around behind him, before reappearing in the corner of his right eye, stopping on the spot and staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. Mohinder continues, “So much for the excitement at you being Patient Zero. It turns out you were actually way down the list.”

Sylar looks at him with an unreadable expression. Mohinder is sure that the personal pain at having yet another definable accolade stripped away from Sylar is tantamount to treason in his mind.

Suddenly Sylar moves towards him and angling his head low next to Mohinder 's, says, “I don't like being made _palatable_ into some archaic model of a romantic rogue or a pathetic creature needing my hand held. I used to be frightening. Now I'm the family pet.”

“And I don't like being dumbed down just so that other characters can be held up as the _standard_. I used to be complicated. I was a scientist who was too emotionally involved, who took risks with what I thought and did, sometimes with great achievement, other times with detrimental consequences. Now I'm an idiot in a dunce cap, used and abused.” Mohinder shifts forward to bring his face closer to the side of Sylar 's. “Even worse, we're not the only ones this is happening to.”

Sylar pulls back slightly and stares at him so intently that Mohinder feels his chest tighten with uncertainty for what will happen next. “You watch all of this destruction from a front row seat?” Sylar quietly asks.

“There's not much else I can do.” Mohinder huffs a deep breath and backs up a few feet.

_Until now. The question is what are you going to do, Sylar?   
_  
A beat goes by. “I can fix this.”

It is a naïve assertion by Sylar's standards and Mohinder widens his eyes in response. Being caught off guard lets a very tiny hint of mirth slip forth, betraying the seriousness of their discussion. “How?”

“I'm invulnerable, remember?” Sylar says with a twinge of amusement at his fortune and disbelief at the weapon that puts in his back pocket.

“Another fool-hearted move on their part.” Mohinder groans. “When death isn't an option, life isn't quite worth fighting for.”

A few seconds stretch out until Sylar says more somberly, “I have my ways.”

Mohinder dismissively murmurs and shifts his eyes to the living room, then back to Sylar. “You're very sure of yourself. May I remind you that outside of this apartment you don't have quite the sway you think you do.”

“Oh ye of little faith.” Sylar smirks. “When have I ever backed down from a challenge?”

Mohinder wishes he could rattle off a list, but not being able to makes what could happen next just beyond his door all the more real an undertaking. He needs to believe in this. Sylar showing up in his apartment proves that no matter the manipulations that control their movement and the words forced to trip off their tongues, there remains a small trace of who they are from their _first_ rendering into existence, the one that matters. Before his very eyes, Sylar is transformed again into the man Mohinder remembers far too well. The one who intrigued and scared him all at once. But now instead of resolving himself to remain undeterred in the face of that fear, Mohinder relishes it.

“I don't have much choice do I?” Mohinder asks with a mix of caution and want.

Sylar stares at him wistfully, his expression briefly faltering before the stoic mask is slipped back into place. He puts his back to Mohinder and goes to the door, opening it.

_Stay_ and _goodbye_ wrestle against Mohinder's lips and he strikes up a barricade, drawing his lips into a tight line.

Sylar has his left hand on the inside doorknob and his right one wrapped around the edge of the door by his head. He looks at Mohinder who stands next to the table and wraps his fingers around the top of one of the chairs.

“Do you have enough to keep that mind of yours busy?” Sylar asks.

Mohinder offers him a crooked smile. “Does rereading all my books for the fifth time count?” He sighs. “It's funny what the mind seeks out when nothing makes sense anymore. I actually wondered if Isaac or Simone were around. Maybe Adam. Even Charlie--you do remember Charlie?”

Sylar raises an eyebrow at Mohinder's testy challenge but does not answer.

Mohinder gives him a knowing smirk and drops the pretense. “Then I figured it may be more likely that Monica is somewhere around here--by phone, not the apartment. What I wouldn't give just to speak with them and maybe figure out if we could meet. I imagine Zach's probably wandering around aimlessly. Caitlin must be a sight, though I have no idea if she'd be here or still stuck in some dystopian future. I'm sure Lyle's set up permanent residence here, somewhere.”

After a brief pause Mohinder groans. “Maya.”

Sylar gives him a questioning look.

Shaking his head, Mohinder says, “I…the serum…made me use her in the most crude of ways, betraying a trust and my own common sense, morals. Not that I'm even sure she noticed since they made her completely forget Alejandro.”

Taking a small step forward Mohinder turns frustratingly contemplative. “Do you know what a force she could have been? Her power was immense. You had already begun to teach her how to control it--to keep yourself alive, but still--and if the writers had let her continue on that path she could have someone to be reckoned with.”

“Instead they made it debilitating,” Sylar says.

“They made her weak,” Mohinder stresses. “They made her a victim of it instead of its possessor. They took away her purpose as if she had nothing to offer but the sight of her body and when it was all stripped away they packed her off.”

Mohinder sighs. “She didn't even get to confront you. There was no final powered battle like there should have been. Then again it looks like we won't get one either. So much for our _entire_ set up.”

A heaviness presses down, made worse by the stifling silence.

“Stay focused,” Sylar eventually reminds him tersely.

Mohinder is unsure if it is a warning, an order, or a request based on the shared understanding of a profound sense of uselessness that seems inescapable. He wants to scream and throw a childish tantrum; he wants to declare war for what has been forced upon him and what he is now at the mercy of.

“Don't I always?” Mohinder asks instead, mental exhaustion finally kicking in.

Sylar turns up a half smile and begins to shuffle into the hallway.

“Gabriel,” Mohinder calls out so fast he is sure his brain is still trying to figure out why.

Sylar halts and meets Mohinder's pleading eyes.

“Don't forget me.”

Contemplative lines wrinkles across Sylar's forehead overtop narrowing, thoughtful eyes, and for a split second Mohinder thinks he is going to make a dismissive joke.

Instead Sylar says, “Never.”

Mohinder doesn't believe him, or better yet doesn't trust the writers to not further destroy Sylar to the point where everything that was once worth being fascinated and awed by is systematically removed. Mohinder walks over to the door and stretches up his left hand to grab it above where Sylar's hand still is. Sylar's eyes, shifting and moody; appear inquisitively concerned once again. Mohinder wonders if they mirror his own. After all, this may be the last time he sees Sylar; sees anyone from a life he once felt spark his body and mind to life.

“All the same,” Mohinder says reverently, “out there anything can happen. I…remember me.”

“Always.”

“Don't just say that to placate me,” Mohinder exclaims with frustration.

Sylar's curt laugh, not necessarily affectionate as much as annoyed right back, slices through the tense air between them. “You always had a problem with listening, Mohinder.”

_I wasn't begging for my life. I was offering you yours._

“Try as they might,” Sylar bends his head close to Mohinder's, “I have never forgotten you. You mean too much.”

_Oh no. I'm not done with him yet. _

_They're out there. I can feel them ... so innocent, so unaware of what's happening to them. We'll find them, Mohinder. All of them, together. The two of us. It's our destiny.   
_  
A flare of heat flushes Mohinder's cheeks and he looks down at Sylar's suit before he feels steady enough to make eye contact again. “You'll be tested on a declaration like that.”

Sylar smiles gamely. “I'm counting on it.” He heads into the hallway.

Holding onto the door, Mohinder moves forward, remaining on the threshold, to watch him leave. “Don't get cocky,” he calls out. “Your next storyline will take you in a completely new direction. If you get too enamored with yourself you'll drown.”

_And take me with you._

Sylar shoots him a _'calm down'_ look over his shoulder. “Is that what passes for a pep talk nowadays? Trust me, Doctor.”

“I don't know if I can,” Mohinder states, truly getting what they are just beginning to take on.

Sylar pauses at the top of the staircase and looks directly at him. “Do you have a better option?”

_No_.

Suddenly a strange bout of altered déjà vu flows over Mohinder. But this time, instead of Sylar asking for his help (against the odds but still--naively--hoping) now it is Mohinder asking the same of Sylar.

“I need this to work, Sylar. I need an ending.”

_One that makes sense, not this wallowing into oblivion becoming no more than an afterthought remembered only for how wrong it all went._

“No,” Sylar says clearly, with absolute precision, taking one step down. “You need another beginning. We both do.”

_We all do_.

“And when this works,” Sylar continues with a sly smile, “and it will--you can fight me for the ending.”

Their gaze held; Mohinder then listens to Sylar's fading footsteps before closing the door. Turning around, he rests his back against it and shifts down on his feet, staring at the apartment.

It has all the markings of being unchanged. Yet the past that once breathed a panicked and excitable life into it--a past that has long since felt stagnant and forgotten--suddenly seems to be pressing in at the seams. Mohinder does not want to fall prey to false hope, but it is hard to ignore the tease of possibility in the air with Sylar on a mission, on his side.

_There was always something there_.

Mohinder sighs, a relieved smile settling into place. He might still get to be somebody yet.   
 

**Author's Note:**

> Heroes Faves Summer 2010 Fiction Awards  
> **Nominated for Outstanding Use of Literary Devices - Vignette - (WINNER)**


End file.
